to prevent them from smashing into each other during a storm. Most of those gaps are covered over, but there are many left open and used to dispose rubbish or to lower the fishing nets. Some lead down to the lower levels, too, and they have guards. But you won’t find a guard on a rubbish hole.”
Brilliant. The autogyros were quiet; they could fly up beneath New Eden in the dark, and be inside a few minutes later. She was almost sorry that Bilson was likely bluffing, and that she wouldn’t be infiltrating the city this way. After she told Archimedes about it, she thought he’d have loved a shot at it, too.
“Thank you, James.”
“It’s nothing.” Scarsdale closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead. “Truly, nothing. It’s easy to get into the city—getting away from it is another matter. Do you have a plan for that?”
“No good one yet, but we probably won’t build a glider.”
His smile was pained. “As long as you don’t let Trahaearn build it, you’ll likely do better than we did.”
He’d survived, so he hadn’t done too badly—but it had been exactly the wrong time for Scarsdale to survive. A few years earlier, his lover had been killed by hunters who’d deemed them less than men. Scarsdale had sought his own death after that, aligning himself with Trahaearn, a pirate who seemed bound to die in fiery blaze.
But when they’d been taken aboard New Eden and the glider they’d used to escape had fallen apart while they’d still been in the air, Scarsdale hadn’t been as ready for death as he’d thought. He’d been terrified of heights since fleeing New Eden. Though still one of the bravest men she knew, he couldn’t even climb aboard her airship without being blissed on opium or unconscious with drink.
She’d always been afraid that love would bring her to her knees, destroy everything she’d earned. She’d never wanted it. But she had love now, and she still stood. Stronger, perhaps, than she’d ever stood before.
But losing that love…Hell, it had brought a man as strong as Scarsdale to his knees. She wouldn’t do any better if she lost Archimedes.
She barely did any better simply thinking of losing him.
Belatedly, she realized that silence had fallen between them, with Scarsdale’s perceptive gaze monitoring her every expression. When she met his eyes, his smile mocked her. “You don’t ask about Bushke?”
“I was waiting for you to tell me.”
“He’s a kindly looking man with an iron fist.”
“Literally?”
“No. But it’s easy to believe that he’s weak, that he’ll have mercy.”
“Like General Truss.” During the Liberé war, even Yasmeen had been uneasy when she’d accepted a job from him. “Or Saint Marie from Archimedes Fox and the Pearls of Penitence.”
“Yes.”
A benevolent tyrant, then—one who never gave his people any choices at all. “Why didn’t you or Trahaearn kill him?”
“We meant to. After the glider was ready, we’d formed a plan to enter his quarters from the lower level—one of those access points is connected to the hangar and comes up right beside his ship…probably so that he can escape if New Eden is ever attacked. We were in position, we’d gotten past his guard on that entry, but Bushke was called away from his quarters. We had the glider with us; if we’d waited, if anyone had seen us, we’d have missed our opportunity to go.”
And killing Bushke hadn’t been a priority. She nodded and glanced down at the sketches. “May I take these?”
“You haven’t memorized them?” Laughing at her, he shook his head. “I’ve seen you plan dozens of missions. You’ve never been this distracted.”
Her smile was slight. It was true. Worry gnawed at her, as it never had before. She thought of Archimedes constantly.
“Is it Fox?” He watched her face, and within a moment, astonishment registered on his. “Unbelievable. I thought you were fond of him, at most.”
“At most, that’s what I should have been. So I declared anything more to be impossible…and it seemed that in the next moment, I was full in. He sneaked up on me.”
“He seems that sort.” Scarsdale’s grin betrayed his genuine delight. “And now that your belly is exposed, whatever will you do?”
Ah, Scarsdale. He always got right to the heart of it. “I don’t worry about my belly anymore. I worry about him. I didn’t know that would happen.”
“I’d have told you, but you wouldn’t have believed me.”
“Probably not,” she admitted. Even when she’d first fallen in love with Archimedes, she’d thought she knew what it meant: that